The IGC Student Council chose six projects. These projects span the world, connecting Macalester to myriad communities, near and far.

Our Live It! project will provide new opportunities for people to interact with each other, their food sources, and their urban landscape. In partnership with Stone’s Throw Urban Farm, we will promote information sharing across age and cultural boundaries through teaching youth about local food systems. We will work with farmers, community members, and partner organizations to start a farm camp, build multi-lingual community lending libraries, and continue to provide local, sustainable agriculture to marginalized neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. Our project will implement a non-traditional, hands-on model to teach sustainable agriculture principles to campers. We will challenge youth to consider the effects of using urban space for food production and the advantages of local food. We believe that when one enacts global citizenship, the line between teaching and learning almost evaporates. Farm camp will enable us to live this definition, as we work to build community around local food.

IMPROVING ACCESS TO HEATHCARE ACCESS IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES (Bolivia)Margo Faulk '13: Global citizenship has two essential elements: first, a vision of a more just and empathetic world, and second, the manner in which this goal is pursued, namely through respectful intercultural engagement. This project will work towards improving healthcare access in indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon using participatory development and appropriate technology. In partnership with A Tu Lado and Mano a Mano, I will be mapping resources and epidemiological trends to help improve care provided by the Bolivian evacuation service, engaging the community in discussion about their needs and views on health and healthcare, and assisting in the development of a patient information system. The project aims in part to address tensions between modern medicine and marginalized communities with traditional beliefs by creating a space for dialogue and critical reflection. This will complement the emergency medicine training programs A Tu Lado is offering for community members and healthcare providers.

VOTER EMPOWERMENT AT PEACE HOUSE (Minneapolis)Eric Goldfischer '13 This summer, I will lead a voter empowerment project at Peace House Community, a drop-in center in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. Peace House provides a safe space for disenfranchised people throughout the Twin Cities, with a particular focus on those who have nowhere to experience community: people experiencing homelessness, ex-offenders returning from incarceration, and other marginalized populations. My project will create a series of facilitated conversations at Peace House around the meaning of citizenship and voting in light of the voter ID bill currently moving through the Minnesota legislature, which would make voting while homeless nearly impossible. Through these conversations, the community will create knowledge about the link between democracy, citizenship, occupying urban space, and structures of oppression that prevent ownership of local and global citizenship through voting. The project will culminate in November with a community effort to engage with citizenship through empowering voters experiencing homelessness.

NYAME TSEASE BAKERY (Cape Coast, Ghana)Leah Plummer '13 Nyame Tsease is a traditional drum and dance group in Cape Coast, Ghana lead by Antoinette Adwoa Kudoto, Ghana's only female master drummer. Nyame Tsease welcomed me into their community this past fall while I studied abroad. They patiently taught me to drum and shared their lives with me. They are incredibly talented young adults but unfortunately, few of them have a consistent place to live or enough food for themselves and their families. They have expressed interest in starting a bakery to support themselves, their loved ones, and the group. Though this grant I will support and provide funds to start up their bakery. *This project has been moved to take place in December-January 2012-2013

EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH BICYCLE TRANSPORTATION: ADULT LEARN TO RIDE PROGRAM (St. Paul)Essie Schlotterbeck '13 and Hannah Geil-Neufeld '13 This summer Essie Schlotterbeck ‘13 and Hannah Geil-Neufeld ‘13 will design and facilitate an Adult Learn to Ride cycling program in partnership with Cycle for Change’s Community Partners Bike Library. The Learn to Ride sessions will take place at non-profit organizations throughout the Twin Cities and build community by involving Cycle for Change’s youth apprentices as co-facilitators. Learning to ride a bicycle will empower members of the diverse Twin Cities community to utilize a form of transportation that enables them to engage in their own communities as active citizens on a local scale, as well as to commute sustainably as part of the global community. The program will be geared towards immigrant women--a demographic that is traditionally excluded from bicycle planning and advocacy.

MANO Y MANO: BRIDGING CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND DEVELOPMENTAL DIVIDES (Lake Atitalan, Guatemala)Alexa Wilcox '13 (Lake Atitalan, Guatemala) Global citizenship is a critical outlook on life and a blueprint ideology to addressing universal challenges. We must coevolve together to meet the shared planetary threats of our generation acting in concert acting as a unique global community to address these issues while at the same time preserving and jealously protecting the diverse qualities which make us innately and beautifully human. My project to serve as the Summer Regional Director for the non-profit organization, Rising Minds, a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in the Lake Atitlan region of Guatemala. This project embodies my definition of global citizenship because it seeks to bridge cultural, economic and developmental gaps through education, awareness and the empowerment of both local and international communities. As the Regional Director I will sustain, expand and spearhead projects such as sustainable construction from recycled items, a videography project for youth, communities’ gardens and CPR training for every teacher in public schools around the lake.